If you think South Australia’s McLaren Vale is all about super rich, high alcohol reds, now is a great time to challenge your preconceptions. According to wine critic Huon Hooke, McLaren Vale is “alive with a new surge of vitality and is making superb wine.” (Red Means Go in the Vale by Huon Hooke, Good Food, SMH, 6 August 2013)

The seeds for transformation were sown around 15 years ago when the region’s top wineries began shifting their plantings to better suited, mainly red wine varieties. But confidence really started to surge about five years ago, coinciding with the release of the area’s first detailed geological map!

First detailed geological wine map released in 2010

In 2010, after decades of research, geologists confirmed what top winemakers like Clarendon Hill’s Roman Bratasiuk had long intuited. McLaren Vale was an incredibly ancient land with an unusually diverse range of soils and underlying rock formations that are capable of imbuing the wines with very individualistic characters.

The map identified nineteen distinct soil and rock districts within six geological and mesa-climate subregions: Blewitt Springs, McLaren Flat, Seaview, McLaren Vale, Willunga and Sellicks. According to Wine Australia’s regional director Aaron Brasher, no other Geographical Indication (GI) in Australia has been so extensively mapped!

Scarce Earth Project promotes terroir-focused wines

To prove that these subtle and not-so-subtle differences in soil type, climate and elevation can find expression in the wines, a group of the region’s most prominent wineries formed the Scarce Earth project in 2010.

Participating wineries were asked to isolate single blocks of land planted to shiraz (the vines must be at least 10 years old) and produce wines representing a true reflection of their terroir or sense of place. Now in its fifth year, wines are submitted for blind-tasting to an expert panel of winemakers and critics. For the 2012 vintage, 37 of the 55 wines tasted were approved.

By necessity wines that show too much oak or alcohol are rejected by the panel because typically high levels of both can mask regional or vineyard expression.

Consequently, many winemakers are now using less interventionist approaches to winemaking. Hooke reports that “the trend towards biodynamic and organic viticulture is also big in ‘the Vale’, and growing.” In fact, only producers who are members of Sustainable Australia Winegrowing can submit wines for consideration to Scarce Earth.

Influx of young winemakers spearheading innovation

An influx of young winemakers, many of whom have planted new vineyards or started their own small wineries, has also helped to revitalise the area. Innovative winemakers like Brash Higgins‘ Brad Hickey, for example, is having great success with Italian red varieties and novel winemaking techniques. He ferments his critically acclaimed Nero d’Avola in bees wax-lined clay amphorae with wild yeasts for up to six months.

McLaren Vale’s transformation is winning high praise from the critics. Last year, the Wine Advocate’s Lisa Perrotti-Brown focused her South Australian report exclusively on McLaren Vale, arguing that “perhaps more so than any other GI in Australia, this region has made huge strides towards clearly defining and differentiating itself in recent years with remarkable results that can be tasted in the wines.” (Australia’s McLaren Vale: Geological Wines by Lisa Perrotti-Brown, Wine Advocate 28 February 2014)

Sacred Earth and Vale Cru – a collective of small production McLaren Vale winemakers – provide links to McLaren Vale’s numerous small producers.

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/mclaren-vale/south-australias-mclaren-vale-focus-on-terroir-is-yielding-exciting-results/feed/0“The Not So Classics” Wine Masterclass: Orange wines spark lively debate!https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/orange-wine/the-not-so-classics-wine-masterclass-orange-wines-spark-lively-debate/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/orange-wine/the-not-so-classics-wine-masterclass-orange-wines-spark-lively-debate/#commentsThu, 05 Mar 2015 02:29:39 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3938Continue reading →]]>I’ve had the privilege of attending quite a few Acqua Panna Global Wine Experiences over the years. Organised as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, the wine masterclasses offer a unique opportunity to sample some terrific, often hard-to-find or unusual wines, and the guest panels often include international wine critics, renowned winemakers and sommeliers.

As the name of the panel suggests, the 12 wines in four brackets were not your classic varieties. Two of the white wines were “orange” wines, the 2011 Tissot Amphorae Savignon from Jura in France and the 2010 Dario Princic Jakot, a fruliano from Friuli in Northeast Italy. Their inclusion in the lineups sparked much debate.

If you’re not familiar with orange wines, you would probably be a bit shocked by a white wine that is cloudy in appearance and has a definite orange or amber hue. This was certainly the reaction from an audience member to the 2011 Tissot Amphorae Savagnin. He wondered what was wrong with wine no. 2?

Perrotti-Brown suggested that the wine was faulty, showing unfavourable signs of oxidation (eg. flat on the palate and bitter in taste), but her opinion wasn’t shared by some other panel members.

Quealy explained that what makes orange wine so unusual, not only to look at but to smell and taste, is the novel technique of letting a white grape variety ferment on its own skin.

Skin maceration is normally a practice reserved for red varieties because the skins’ phenolics and tannins lend colour and texture to the wine. When used for a white wine, skin contact imbues the wine with many of the characteristics normally associated with a red wine, such as a richly textured mouth feel complemented by tannins and a more earthy or savoury after taste.

Debate centred around to what extent the unique attributes of the orange wines were the result of extended skin contact or oxidation.

Quealy argued that sometimes winemakers deliberately use oxidation as a technique to introduce certain aromas – eg bruised apples, dried fruits and smoky nuts. While oxidation generally leads to the detection of volatile acidity (VA), a small amount of VA isn’t necessarily a sign that the wine is faulty.

Certainly the winemaking approach favoured by Stéphane Tissot and Dario Pincic is designed to let a small amount of oxygen permeate the wine throughout the fementation and ageing process. The Tissot Amphorae Savagnin, for example, was fermented in clay amphorae instead of stainless steel.

The use of amphorae is an ancient practice that originated in the Caucuses and was revived in the 1990s by two pioneers of orange wine – Fruili’s Josko Gravner and Stanko Radikon. Clay amphorae is more permeable than stainless steel, and during the fermentation process some of the wine evaporates. If the vessel is not topped up, oxygen rests above the flor or veil that sits on top of the wine.

Both wines were aged in used barriques for 20 months or more and only a small amount of sulphur was used to preserve the wines. Bennie explained that the exposure of wine to oxygen throughout the fermentation and ageing process limits the need to add sulphur and also extends the life of the wine in bottle.

Sorry to sound a bit technical, but I think an understanding of how the wines are made better prepares you for a somewhat idiosyncratic tasting experience. One audience member, who seemed to know a lot about orange wines, was emphatic that the wines didn’t have oxidative characters, attributing their somewhat funky qualities to skin contact only.

Because of their red wine-like qualities, orange wines are best served at room temperature. I certainly found myself enjoying the wines more as they opened up. The bitter herb like accents didn’t diminish the liveliness of the citrus flavours and the minerally acidity of the 2011 Tissot Amphorae Savignin. And while the tannins added red wine-like texture and structure, both wines were still elegant and less weighty than reds.

Popular with sommeliers, orange wines are often expensive but well worth a try, especially if you’re looking for something different!

Merrill Witt, Editor

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/orange-wine/the-not-so-classics-wine-masterclass-orange-wines-spark-lively-debate/feed/0Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay 2012 makes list of top 50 Australian Wineshttps://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/penfolds-yattarna-chardonnay-2012-makes-list-of-top-50-australian-wines/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/penfolds-yattarna-chardonnay-2012-makes-list-of-top-50-australian-wines/#commentsWed, 25 Feb 2015 01:18:50 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3928Continue reading →]]>Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay 2012 was one of four Penfolds wines to make the Top 50 Australian wines of 2014, a list recently put together by wine critic Nick Stock for JamesSuckling.com. (Tasting Report: Nick’s 50 Best Australian Wines of 2014, 5 February 2015, JamesSuckling.com)

“Finally fulfilled its potential” no doubt refers to the fact in the mid 1990s Penfolds set a bold ambition to create a white wine of the same standard as its world famous Penfolds Grange!

Yattarna is an Aboriginal word that means ‘little by little,’ a name that certainly seems appropriate for a wine that has stylistically evolved over the years.

Like Penfolds Grange, Yattarna is a multi region blend. In more recent vintages fruit has been primarily sourced from the primarily cooler climates of Tasmania and Victoria, with the goal of creating a style of chardonnay that is crisper, tighter and more elegant than the oaky, buttery style in vogue when the inaugural 1995 vintage was first released in 1998.

The 2012 vintage was matured for eight months in 45 percent new French oak. Whole-bunch pressing, barrel-fermentation including the use of some wild yeasts, malolactic fermentation and lees-stirring (battonage) are just some of the winemaking techniques employed to give weight, texture, complexity and great ageing potential to this elegant, fine-boned cool-climate chardonnay.

Here’s wine critic’s Huon Hooke’s impressive 97 point review:

Light to very light colour, the bouquet likewise very fresh, youthful and undeveloped. Nougat, a hint of almond and marzipan. The palate is tremendously intense and focused, concentrated and powerful, with great line and length. Amazing purity of flavour, as well as line and length. A great wine with a massive future before it. (HuonHooke.com, 19 November 2014)

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/penfolds-yattarna-chardonnay-2012-makes-list-of-top-50-australian-wines/feed/0The Magical Wines of Mosel’s Dr. Loosen: Prince Wine Store Tastinghttps://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/riesling/the-magical-wines-of-mosels-dr-loosen-prince-wine-store-tasting/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/riesling/the-magical-wines-of-mosels-dr-loosen-prince-wine-store-tasting/#commentsFri, 20 Feb 2015 02:16:53 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3909Continue reading →]]>Last Friday the new Prince Wine Store in Sydney hosted a very special tasting of rieslings from some of the world’s top winemakers and emerging stars, most of whom had come to Australia for Melbourne’s Riesling Downunder extravaganza.

One of the highlights of the tasting was the opportunity to meet one of the major stars of the German wine industry, the very personable Erni Loosen of Dr. Loosen in Mosel.

Like pinot noir, riesling is a grape capable of doing a brilliant job at expressing the sense of place, and the wines of Dr. Loosen are unmistakably the product of the very special Mosel terroir.

Dr. Loosen has over 25 hectares of south-facing vineyards in Middle Mosel, spread across some of the most spectacular and steepest vineyard terrain in the world. Here the soil is a mix of pulverised volcanic rock and broken-down red and blue slate over a hard slate base.

Interestingly, the composition of the top soils can vary markedly according to the vineyard’s altitude and its location along the Mosel River. Over the last few decades, Erni has invested a great deal of energy in nurturing the very best fruit from his labour-intensive vineyards. Organic fertilisers, restricted crop size and careful fruit selection are just some of the practices employed to ensure that even the most subtle differences in terroir are expressed in his range of sophisticated, single vineyard wines.

Here ungrafted vines of up to 70 years of age are grown on soils of predominately blue slate that are deeper and heavier than in the neighbouring villages. It’s an ideal site for making light and delicate kabinett because the slightly richer soil lends texture and palate weight to this low alcohol wine. Imbued with wonderfully intense floral and fruit aromas, the wine has a delicate yet racy slate-infused acidity that threads through the unfolding layers of elegant flavours.

Wine has been made in the Mosel region since Roman times, and in fact the area is dotted with Ancient Roman ruins. The Dr. Loosen estate has been in the family for over 200 years. Erni took over from his father in 1988, and has been very successful in elevating the quality of the estate wines and improving the reputation of German riesling in general.

In recent years Erni has expanded the family’s operations, which now include Villa Wolf in the Pfalz region of Germany and US partnerships with Chateau St Michelle in Washington and J Christopher Wines in Oregon.

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/riesling/the-magical-wines-of-mosels-dr-loosen-prince-wine-store-tasting/feed/0Should we look to New Zealand for the World’s Best Chardonnays?https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/new-zealand-chardonnay/should-we-look-to-new-zealand-for-the-worlds-best-chardonnays/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/new-zealand-chardonnay/should-we-look-to-new-zealand-for-the-worlds-best-chardonnays/#commentsMon, 16 Feb 2015 19:59:55 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3885Continue reading →]]>I’m sure the team at New Zealand’s Martinborough Vineyards were thrilled when their Martinborough Vineyard Chardonnay 2012 was recently named “Top wine of the Tasting” in Decanter’s Magazine’s blind tasting of “The best Chardonnays in the world (outside Burgundy).” It topped a very competitive field – 80 of the finest chardonnays from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. The Best Chardonnays in the world (outside Burgundy) by Stephen Brook, Decanter Magazine, March 2015

New Zealand has a long established reputation for world class pinot noir, but chardonnay is starting to steal the limelight.

Interestingly, some of the best chardonnay in New Zealand can be found off the beaten track, so to speak. The Wine Advocate’s Lisa Perrotti-Brown recently raved about the Brajkovich family’s Kumeu River chardonnays, remarking that they “continue to be amongst a handful of the very best, world-class Chardonnays coming out of New Zealand, demonstrating great finesse and terroir expression as well as ageing potential.” (New Zealand: The Others by Lisa Perrotti-Brown, 30 December 2014)

One of New Zealand’s oldest wineries, Kumeu River is situated north of Auckland, about as far away as you can get from the two big wine making wine regions of Marlborough and Central Otago on the South Island.

Waikari or North Canterbury (as it’s formally known) on the South Island is New Zealand’s newest and most remote wine region. It is another area with a unique terroir that is proving ideal for growing chardonnay.

Waikari’s Bell Hill Chardonnay 2011, for example, was one of 10 wines voted “Outstanding” by the Decanter Magazine’s blind tasting panel. Perotti-Brown believes that for “anyone looking to try the very best that New Zealand has to offer – wines that sit shoulder to shoulder with some of the best examples of these grapes from anywhere in the world – it’s well worth tracking down Bell Hill.”

Bell Hill is a biodynamic, family-run vineyard set on a bell-shaped hill that was once a limestone quarry. It consists of only two hectares of densely planted pinot noir and chardonnay. Owners Marcel Geisen and Sherwyn Veldhuizen prefer to think of themselves as wine growers, not makers, seeing no separation between the vineyard and the winery.

Next door to Bell Hill is Pyramid Valley, another biodynamic, small scale producer which makes “astonishingly good, terroir-expressive wines that will challenge all your preconceptions” according to Perotti-Brown. Owned by Mike and Claudia Elze Weersing, who purchased the land in 2000, the couple make just four wines: two single vineyard chardonnays and two single vineyard pinot noirs. Interested in making wines as natural as possible, only just enough sulphur is added to the wines to ensure stability.

Yes, the future is indeed looking bright for New Zealand chardonnay. Here’s the Decanter’s tasting panel assessment of the top wine from the tasting, the Martinborough Vineyards Chardonnay 2012:

Finely expressed summer fruits nose with hints of lime and apple. Perfectly poised on the palate with a certain raciness and also quite mineral. In balance, with natural fruit, citrussy richness, fine oak and a long finish. Drink 2015-2020

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/new-zealand-chardonnay/should-we-look-to-new-zealand-for-the-worlds-best-chardonnays/feed/0Decanter Magazine names Australia’s Top 4 Chardonnayshttps://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/decanter-magazine-names-australias-top-4-chardonnays/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/decanter-magazine-names-australias-top-4-chardonnays/#commentsThu, 12 Feb 2015 00:55:26 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3877Continue reading →]]>Decanter Magazine recently conducted a blind tasting to come up with a list of the “Best Chardonnays in the world (outside Burgundy).” Nominated for consideration by top wine critics were the finest chardonnays from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa and the USA. 80 wines in total were tasted. (The Best Chardonnays in the world (outside Burgundy) by Stephen Brook, Decanter Magazine, March 2015)

While the Martinborough Vineyard Chardonnay 2012 from New Zealand was crowned “Wine of the Tasting,” four Australian wines made it into the top 10 list of “Outstanding Wines” (South Africa came in second with three wines on the list):

The Decanter tasting panel of Stephen Brook, Jasper Morris MW and Steven Spurrier thought that “about half of the wines couldn’t have been Burgundy, but half quite easily could have.’

In fact, at a blind tasting in Australia, Brook confidently placed the Leeuwin Estate Art Series Margaret River 2010 as a Burgundy! He describes it as “a magnificent, limpid, complex Chardonnay, with broad shoulders but rarely showing excessive oak or heft.”

Certainly top winemakers like By Farr’s Gary Farr are drawn to the Burgundian style of making chardonnay. Wines, which at their best, are hailed for their complexity, nuance, finesse and ageability.

The By Farr Chardonnay 2012 is an example of a wine rich in flavour yet elegant and refined. Brook describes it having a “full and somewhat exotic style yet [with] tension and complexity.”

The grapes for this wine are grown on the same vineyard as the pinot noir used for the acclaimed By Farr Sangreal Pinot Noir. It’s a very exposed north facing site of red loom soil over limestone, which lends a magnificent minerality to both wines.

Like Farr, De Bortoli winemaker Steve Webber prefers a fairly non-interventionist approach to winemaking in order to allow the character of the special terroir to shine through. Typically, the grapes are whole bunch pressed, barrel-fermentated with natural yeasts and allowed to undergo a malolactic fermentation before ageing in barrel for nine months.

The Giaconda Estate Vineyard Chardonnay 2011 is another example of a wine that is beautifully expressive of its site.

Set in the foothills of the North East Victorian Alps in Beechworth, the Giaconda vineyards sit on soil composed of 450 million year old granitic loam over decomposed gravel and clay.

Here the clay allows sustained water-release to the vine roots, minimising the need for irrigation, and the poor quality top soil naturally keeps yields low. The site situation – a south east facing slope not exposed to direct sunlight – allows the chardonnay to enjoy a slow ripening period, creating greater flavour complexity and higher natural acid levels in the wine.

First released in 1986 and still made today by Giaconda founder and winemaker Rick Kinzbrunner, this toasty and powerful wine is often compared to the finest Puligny-Montrachet grand crus.

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/australian-chardonnay/decanter-magazine-names-australias-top-4-chardonnays/feed/0The delights of drinking aged Penfolds Grangehttps://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/penfolds-grange/the-delights-of-drinking-aged-penfolds-grange/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/penfolds-grange/the-delights-of-drinking-aged-penfolds-grange/#commentsTue, 10 Feb 2015 00:21:34 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3849Continue reading →]]>Over the past couple of months I’ve had the good fortune to try two bottles of aged Penfolds Grange, the 2003 and the 1982. Both were opened (as they should be!) to celebrate two very special occasions – first a memorable birthday and then a farewell retirement party for our warehouseman Joe.

The 2003 had an absolutely beguiling bouquet. Cedar, Asian spices, and an assortment of dark berries – the fruit was so fresh!

If I find the aroma of a wine really enticing, I’m sometimes nervous to actually drink the wine, lest it disappoints. But the voluptuous, intricately layered palate of the 2003 lived up to my expectations. Every mouthful was sublime!

The bouquet on the 1982 was less enveloping but equally inviting. The fruit, while not as fresh as the 2003, was still very vibrant. As you would expect, the tannins had seamlessly integrated into the body of the wine. But the lack of overt tannins hadn’t diminished the wine’s structure. It still displayed remarkable depth and opulence – both signature characteristics of the Grange style.

An article by the Wine Advocate’s Lisa Perrotti-Brown shed some excellent light on why Grange needs to age.

When Grange’s creator Max Schubert designed Grange, he decided to finish off the fermentation off-skins in new American oak barrels. Apparently he had witnessed the practice of finishing the fermentation process in barrel on a trip to Bordeaux in 1950.But as Perrotti-Brown notes, most great Bordeaux wines typically finish fermenting in vats on skins and remain on skins for a total of 2 – 4 weeks prior to racking, primarily to extract more skin tannins. Schubert probably witnessed an unusual practice.

In any event, the technique worked well for his main fruit of choice – beautifully ripened warm climate shiraz, which is naturally high in tannins.

In some years, however, this practice requires that tannins are added to the wine in order to ensure that it will age 20 years or more. While the added tannins lend a particular taste and texture to the wine when young, Perrotti-Brown believes that in the long-term they don’t detract from its quality:

…over a period of aging, as the tannins polymerize, soften and fade into the background of the complex/evolved fruit derived flavours, so their contribution to taste and texture is diminished. For that reason I find Grange can be a little boring when it’s young but incredibly exciting when it’s mature, after around 15 years in bottle, once the wonderfully expressive and complex fruit is fully revealed and comes to the forefront. (Real Penfolds Grange by Lisa Perrotti-Brown, The Wine Advocate, December 2011)

So don’t be tempted to drink your more recent release Grange too soon! The real pleasures of this great wine evolve and reveal themselves only over time!

by Merrill Witt, Editor

The Cellarit Wine Market has an excellent selection of current and back vintage Penfolds Grange.

NSW is back on the map as one of Australia’s best wine regions. Not long ago the Hunter Valley held the mantle as the state’s key region for making high qualities wines. But today the creativity and talent of mainly smaller producers have put 16 wine regions firmly on the radar of wine critics and consumers alike.

In a recent article on “the NSW wine all-stars,” the SMH’s wine critic Huon Hooke noted how successful NSW winemakers have been in experimenting with new wine styles. Many have also forged reputations through focusing on alternatives to the traditional French varieties. New England’s highly regarded Topper’s Mountain, for example, makes both a gewurztraminer and a nebbiolo. (The NSW wine all-stars by Huon Hooke, Goodfood, 3 February 2015)

Rondinella and corvina are the two main varieties used to produce northern Italy’s Amarone and Valpolicella wines. Freeman Vineyards’ winemaker Dr Brian Freeman, a former Professor of Wine Science at Charles Sturt University, secured just six cuttings of rondinella and corvina from CSIRO’s grape breeding collection when he established Freeman Vineyards in 1999. The Freeman Secco Rondinella Corvina was first released in 2002.

Only a small portion of the grapes in the Secco are dried, but enough to give the wine the rich, sensual qualities that are characteristic of great Amarone.

Freeman has access to a neighbour’s solar-power prune dehydrator, where the grapes layered on racks and gently heated in air tunnels at 40 degrees for up to 10 days. The dried grapes are then added to the fermentation tanks and the wine is aged for 12 months in a combination of old French and American oak barriques.

Huon Hooke describes the current 2009 vintage as “a powerful wine with real structure and aging potential. Its deep core of dark-cherry fruit is surrounded by good ripe tannins and the wine has a savouriness that is very Italian.”

]]>https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/hilltops-region/hilltops-freeman-secco-rondinella-corvina-the-rewards-of-experimentation/feed/0Cofield Durif 2007: A Wine that’s aged brilliantlyhttps://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/victoria/cofield-durif-2007-a-wine-thats-aged-brilliantly/
https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/victoria/cofield-durif-2007-a-wine-thats-aged-brilliantly/#commentsTue, 03 Feb 2015 00:36:17 +0000https://www.cellarit.com.au/wine-blog/?p=3843Continue reading →]]>Some good friends of ours have an Australian Day tradition of hosting a long wine lunch. This year 12 guests were asked to bring one of their favourite bottles. Each wine is served blind, and the owner of the wine is invited to ask a series of questions to see if anyone can identify it correctly. (It’s great fun and often the answers are all over the place!)

Most of the guests thought the magnum of Cofield Durif 2007 was an Australian cool climate shiraz, which probably came from Victoria or the Canberra District. But its strong peppery bouquet and full fruit flavours delivered in a medium body enlivened by clean yet silky tannins were in fact the hallmarks of a beautifully aged, eight year old durif from Victoria’s Rutherglen.

Durif holds a special place in the hearts of Rutherglen winemakers. It was successfully introduced to the region by viticulturalist Francois de Casella in 1908, who was looking for a suitable variety to revitalise the district’s vineyards after a devastating phylloxera outbreak.

Durif was originally cultivated in the South of France by botanist Francois Durif in the 1880s. It never really took hold in France, but today it’s also popular in the US where it’s called petite sirah.

The Rutherglen terroir has proven ideal for growing durif, which needs a relatively long and dry growing season to ripen properly. It is also a variety best suited to small scale production, as it demands a high level of vineyard attention to bring out its best.

Family owned producers like Cofield, Stanton & Killeen and Campbells all make fine table wines from durif, and the variety is a key component in the region’s acclaimed vintage and tawny style fortified wines.

Because of its massive colour and concentration, young durif wine is often compared to Piedmonte’s nebbiolo. Like nebbiolo, the wines are ideally suited for long-term cellaring, as ageing allows the tannins to mellow over time. Most of the Rutherglen producers also make lighter representations of the style, so the wine can be enjoyed young.

These wines are also remarkably good value. The Cofield Durif 2012, for example, retails for $24 a bottle and is available from the winery.

The wine certainly presents itself as something special. It’s a big, heavy bottle with a very Burgundian looking label. We opened it just at the right time; the slightly sweet, richly layered berry fruit flavours and clean but silky tannins perfectly complemented the deliciously succulent, slightly spicy pork belly.

Some people might think $45 is a lot of money for a wine, but this, put simply, is a bargain. To get quality like this out of Burgundy you’d be up for $150+. Anyway, I just ordered a dozen.

Dark cherry, ripe raspberry, sweet damp earth scattered with flowers, pencils and cinnamon and layers of spice – it’s rich, fragrant and deep, and the minute you smell it, you know you’re in for something pretty special. Medium bodied, layers of fruit, mineral and spice, and the thing that marks it out is the pixel fine bed of graphite tannin that forms the foundation of the wine. Superb texture. Then the finish is all spice and sweet ripe tannin washing the palate clean. Yeah, you know, 96 or 97 points. Seems high, I know, but it’s as good as any Australian Pinot I’ve tasted. It’s up there with anything, from anywhere. (The Wine Front, 14 January 2015)

The Hoddles Creek Estate 1er Pinot Noir is the winery’s premium single vineyard release. It comes from the original Vineyard block next to the winery on the family-owned Hoddles Creek property in Victoria’s Upper Yarra. Set alongside Hoddles Creek, the property has belonged to the D’Anna family since 1960. In 1997 vines were planted on the steeply sloping blocks where the marginal soils and cooler climate naturally limit yields.

The wine is made by viticulturist and winemaker Frank D’Anna in a very non-interventionist style. The grapes are transferred using gravity and are only de-stemmed, not crushed. Twenty percent whole bunches are included in the fermentation to make the tannins a little more finer and build structure for long-term ageing. The wine spends 18 months in a balance of new and old oak and is bottled without filtration or fining.